Chapter 299: Returning Cultural Relics

On the 30th of August, a cargo plane from London landed gently at Kings City International Airport. After the plane stopped, media reporters swarmed forward with microphones in their hands and cameras on their shoulders, surrounding the plane completely. The reporter’s faces were clothed in big excitement.

They made their respective comments facing their camera:

“For nearly two hundred years, western colonizers looted tens of millions of valuable cultural relics from the Z nation. Despite that, the Z nation became rich and powerful in current times and made numerous attempts of negotiating with the western powers, but they were reluctant to return those relics. Contrarily, they regarded the Z nation’s relics as their legal assets that paid tribute to their former glory. But for the first time in history, The British Museum returned 100 cultural relics that are beyond price to the Z nation. The remaining 20 thousand relics will all be returned within half a years’ time.”

“This incident bears great historical significance, symbolizing our revolution into a global powerhouse!”

“Today is the day we shed our shame. Every citizen in Z should feel proud and prideful. The descendants of bandits have compromised, they have finally turned soft on us, not because we are reasonable in this, but because we are powerful!”

“A wise man submits to circumstances. It is a wise choice for the British to return us our relics. It lifted the historical disputes that dwelled within our people. The opium war in 1840 and other resentments are all thawed away with a smile. Peace and friendship will be the main theme of future relations between the two countries.”

“Certainly, Xing Hai Technologies played a vital role in the return of our cultural relics. They should be revered as our greatest hero!”

“It is unknown how Xing Hai Technologies convinced the British to hand over our cultural relics. But without a doubt, Xing Hai Technologies outperformed our diplomats and even our warships, making the British abide by the return of our cultural artifacts… this company is our biggest hero!”

“Well done Xing Hai Technologies! I’ll be their fan for life, based solely on this incident!”

“Excuse! Excuse me!” At that moment, dozens of specialists wearing white coats forced a path among the reporters, swiftly arriving at the rear of the plane, and let the staff open up the cargo. Within the cargo, there were up to a hundred square containers. Naturally, it was the priceless relics that were contained within.

The bespectacled lead expert with a head covered in grey was Jin Baochang. He was already past 80. He was the Palace Museum’s chief identification expert and was very familiar with all kinds of cultural relics after indulging in them for numerous decades. There was almost no one that transcended him in terms of experience and judgment towards cultural relics. Within the field, he was revered as the “Living Dictionary.”

As the containers were all labeled with the names of the relics, when the hundreds of priceless treasures were being transported down one after another, Jin Baochang couldn’t help but introduce them in front of the media:

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“This is a Shang dynasty Dual-goat bronze Zun. It was a wine vessel for ceremonial use. The earthen jar is held between the heads of two rams. You can see the head of a ram on both sides which is realistically crafted. It reflects the superiority of the ancient Z’s in crafting bronzeware more than 3,000 years ago… this relic can be described as priceless. This relic is called a Cloisonné, crafted in the Ming dynasty during Xuande Emperor’s reign. The craftsmen of the time used the Byzantine craftsman’s cloisonné craftsmanship and improved the technique in the early 15th century. The production of cloisonné porcelain is time-consuming and costly. The craftsman would use a metal wire to outline the tenacious figure of a dragon and clouds on the bronze vessel, and then fill it with glass paste, giving the relic its extremely bright color… there are currently only two covered cloisonné as this in the entire world, one in the British Museum and the other in private collection. This pair of relics are called ‘David Vases.’ These are one of the most important blue-and-white porcelain samples in existence, and it is probably the most famous porcelain vase in the world. They were made for the Taoist altar. Its value resides within the dated inscription above the dragon and on the side of the bottleneck. This is the earliest known blue and white porcelain with inscriptions in Z. This artifact is a painting. It is a ‘Shan Shui’ piece by Tang Yin, a painter of the Ming Dynasty. Tang Yin is a very famous person, best known by Tang Bohu, one of the four renowned great talents…” Jin Baochang introduced each relic’s origin, specialty, and value in long passages without even changing his breath, enlightening all the reporters at the scene.

For unknown reasons, towards the end, tears rolled down from Jin Baochang’s wrinkled eyes. He sighed. “It has been more than 60 years that I’ve been working in the identification of relics. I’ve visited The British Museum more than 30 times, on average about once every two years and at most three times in a single year. Things have not been easy, it really hasn’t. The British people’s arrogance is buried deep down in their bones. In the beginning, we couldn’t even enter the museum, we were directly refused entrance… at that time, our country had just opened to the outside world. We were still poor, and they looked down on us. Not to mention returning us those relics, they would shun you away even if you just talked about it. Another decade passed, and we could then enter The British Museum, but we could only look at those relics through a glass. We even had security following us. We were not allowed to take photos, and our visit was limited to an hour per instance. Later on, we could take photos, and there were no longer security guards following us. But the relics were still not ours. We have talked to them countless times, but they were still reluctant to return us our relics. I felt humiliated. I felt heartbroken. Every time I saw my nation’s own relics lying in somebody else’s museum, I would feel an ache in my heart. But now, they are back, they are finally home! I can touch them with my own hands and have a good look at them. These are the treasures of our people, and they will not be leaving us ever again! Splendid! Wonderful!” At this point, Jin Baochang already lost his voice in his tears.

Clap clap clap!

The reporters applauded. There were some sentimental female reporters that wept along with him. Looking at the old man who was weeping bitterly, countless audience members watching live broadcast had their eyes get watery.

But most of the netizen’s hearts were filled with doubt. How was it accomplished? How could Xing Hai Technologies have done it?

There was a netizen that did some calculations and analyzed the situation. “There are approximately 230 thousand relics of the Z nation kept in The British Museum. Each of the relics are priceless jewels. Let’s put it this way. On average each relic will be worth 10 million dollars, multiply that by 230 thousand, that will be 23 billion dollars! Returning all of them now would be equivalent to losing 23 billion dollars of economic benefit. Judging on those brazened English gentlemen, how is it possible that they would forgo such a huge benefit and return all the relics without something in return? This is a giant mystery. There are certainly some hidden trades running behind the scenes!”

Other netizens expressed their agreement. “You’re right, there must be some strings that were pulled from behind!”

…

At Happiness Court, at the dining table, looking at Chen Jin with adoration and curiosity, Su Yun inquired of him the same question, “Darling, talk to me about it, how did you manage to do it?”

His mother He Li and father Chen Gang also looked at him with eyes filled with interest.

“The British wanted to save their face and asked our side to keep it a secret, but…” Chen Jin shook his head, “Well, it would cause no harm telling it to you people, but make sure to not tell anybody else.”

“I will keep it between us.” Su Yun nodded her head.

“It was in fact very simple. We have set the basic price of the Little Star learning machine at 20 thousand pounds per unit. The pricing of the virtual factory and the work assistant was also set at 10 times more than that in our country. The British thought the pricing was too expensive. I said, it is simple to reduce the price, for every relic you return, the price of the learning machine or work assistant will be reduced by a pound, while the virtual factory, 1,000 pounds… the more relics they return, the cheaper the price. They did some calculations on the economic account and chose to return us our stuff.”

So that was what happened! Su Yun’s eyes brightened and she instinctively grinned while covering her mouth. 20 thousand pounds per learning machine, her man was so naughty and witty!